Third Session, 42nd Parliament

(2022) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 157

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Tributes

Don Lobb

P. Alexis

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

N. Letnick

Hon. B. Ralston

M. Morris

Hon. N. Simons

J. Rustad

Hon. N. Cullen

N. Sharma

J. Sturdy

D. Routley

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2022

The House met at 1:01 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Tributes

DON LOBB

P. Alexis: I have a bit of sad news today. One of Mission’s community pillars

passed away.

Don Lobb was 95. He was instrumental in seeing through the Mission

Association for Seniors Housing, worked on a number of housing projects.

He was certainly instrumental in the fundraising and the building of the

facilities and actually passed away in The Cedars, which was one of the

facilities that he oversaw.

I just wanted to say I’m very sorry to hear about his death and

grateful for all of the volunteer work that he did for our

community.

Thank you, sir.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued debate on the budget.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Kelowna–Lake Country.

N. Letnick: Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is my first opportunity to welcome you to the chair and congratulate you on a very important position in this Legislature. I hope you enjoy your time. It’s going to be a wonderful time for all of us to have you there. [Applause.] Applause, applause. Good.

This is not my first budget. I was actually thinking about that. This is probably in the neighbourhood of my 22nd or 23rd budget, after nine years on municipal council and my 13th year as an MLA. I’ve had the privilege of being part of making budgets on Treasury Board, as municipal councillor — and now, for the last few years, as a critic of budgets.

Really, we all bring our personalities to the role of making speeches. My personality, as

most people around the House know, is more of a “let’s get the job done,

roll up our sleeves and find positive things that we can do together” kind

of person. That’s the way I’m going to approach this “critique” of the

budget.

[1:05 p.m.]

When I finished my notes…. I’ll get into the details of it soon enough. We do have 28 minutes and 37 seconds left. When I finished my notes, I was thinking about how I would describe the budget. I know the book describes it as “Stronger together.” The Minister of Finance did mention that a few times: “Stronger together.”

I’m going to use that theme in just a second, but I actually came up with a different name. I called this budget “An uncertain budget for uncertain times.” I’ll get to what I mean by that in a few minutes.

Over the last 13 years as an MLA, I’ve always taken the perspective that my job is to relay what my constituents’ wants and needs are to Victoria, as opposed to the other way around. When I was on city council in Kelowna, some people there — don’t ask me why — thought I would make a good candidate for mayor. They came and approached me and said: “Would you run for mayor?” I was thinking about that, because we had three vacancies for the provincial positions coming up for three MLAs.

I said: “Well, I can either become a mayor and then beg Victoria for money, or I can

become an MLA, potentially, and try to deliver money back to Kelowna.” So I chose

the latter, and I’m happy that I did that — much to the chagrin, maybe, of my

family, who kind of miss me every now and then. I miss them huge all the

time.

That’s what I thought, and I still think my primary duty is to relay the needs and wants and desires of my local community to Victoria and, in this case, to the people who made the budget. They’ve had many, many months, with many hundreds of staff working to make this budget. We on the opposition side have had many, many minutes, with maybe a few hours to look at this budget and come up with some responses.

What I’m trying to say to the people back home is that this is second reading of a budget, similar to second reading of any legislation that we see in the Legislature. It’s presented; the opposition gets to see it. Then we go into what’s called the committee stage for legislation, which gives us an opportunity to actually dissect what is meant by the legislation. We’re going to do the same things with the budget, but it’s called estimates.

For those watching at home — maybe my CA, maybe my mom — that’s the process that we’ve started and embarked on now. We make general speeches, get into as much detail as possible, and then we dissect the budget, line by line, minister by minister, over the course of a few months until we rise here. I think it’s on June 2 when we are done.

The first thing I would ask for the government to consider — and in this case, it would be the Premier — is that there is someone very important to this whole process of open government, of accountability, that’s not in this room. And that’s Kevin Falcon. So my first ask, through this budget process, is to ask the Premier to call the by-election in Vancouver-Quilchena so that we can have the leader of the B.C. Liberal Party and the official opposition come in this House and hold the government, in particular the Premier, to account for this very important budget.

That way, also, it would give an opportunity for all those members on the government side who’ve been trying to lob grenades to Mr. Falcon, to actually do it to his face instead of behind his back.

I think that would be actually the best way to proceed with holding this government accountable for this budget: to have the Leader of the Opposition present when it comes time to go through estimates with the Premier, as opposed to someone who is very capable, I’m sure, as the leader of our caucus currently. But I think the Leader of the Opposition should be in the Legislature, and I would call on the Premier to call the by-election as soon as possible.

An uncertain budget for uncertain times. Well, you just have to look at what’s going on

around the world right now to understand what I mean by that. We know, with a

heavy heart…. This morning we heard many speeches about what’s happening in

Ukraine. What’s happening in Ukraine, of course, is something that we all hoped

would never have happened — that the Russian government and the Russian President

would have taken the advice, the counsel, the hints, the requests of the world

community and not invade Ukraine.

[1:10 p.m.]

Now we have the situation where we have people who are suffering. They never asked for this war. We have people who are dying. We have people who are hiding in subways with their children. You know, it’s just a horrible situation, and my heart and all our hearts go out to all those people who are suffering right now in Ukraine because of this action.

This action will have more impact than just to the people of Ukraine. The people of

Ukraine have the greatest impact, but it will also have impact around the world,

and that impact will go all the way around and hit us right here in British

Columbia.

It will hit us in the area of gasoline supply. It’ll hit us in the areas of commodities,

of agriculture. It’s really important that even though, probably…. I would give

the government the benefit of the doubt. When they created this, they didn’t

anticipate those kinds of impacts as they developed this budget. An uncertain

budget for uncertain times.

We need to make sure that we are able to come back to the budget and say: “What do we do now?” Luckily, we have contingencies in the budget. As we go through the estimates process, we’ll identify what those contingencies are and, hopefully, try to identify what they’re for and use those contingencies to maybe offset what’s going to happen with the world’s supply of gasoline, potentially with food supply and also look at what happens with the wealth — or at least perceived wealth — of many of our citizens.

I say that because we already saw the stock market this morning take a hit on what is going on right now in Europe. I’m not too sure where it’s at right now, but I imagine there will be some impact on the stock market. A lot of the people in our province are invested in the market, and they perceive their wealth based on how well their investments are doing. And if their investments aren’t doing very well, they don’t spend as much money. When they don’t spend as much money, the economy doesn’t rotate as well as it could. All that has an impact on the budget.

I go back and I think about all these things together, and I go: “You know, really, it’s an uncertain budget in an uncertain time, brought on by things that maybe were never even considered in this budget.” Later on when I start talking about debt, I’ll tie it back because, as we all know, looking at the budget, debt is on the rise. Debt-to-GDP is on the rise, right? Debt-to-income is on the rise. And if you continue to increase debt, that gives you less flexibility, especially if interest rates go up.

Again, an uncertain budget for an uncertain time. The cost of living is up 5 percent since last year. That’s the highest in 30 years. The cost for food has gone up 6½ percent. Now, both of those things, obviously, will have an impact on what people spend. Some people will be from paycheque to paycheque, trying to find ways of spending less because their dollar won’t go as far. That will have an impact on them, first and mostly of all, but it will also have an impact on the general economy. We’ll see demand go down for products, and that will of course impact on the economic factors and what happens with jobs.

Inflation is not a good thing, because what will likely happen, if you read all the pundits, is you’re going to have higher interest rates. Higher interest rates will dampen the housing market potentially. It depends on what the supply and demand are. If demand has so outstripped supply, even higher interest rates might not bring down the price of housing and make it more affordable for our citizens.

Higher interest rates will definitely have an impact on what people spend, how much they spend and what they spend it on. Again, that is not a good thing for the economy as a whole, individuals of course and businesses that now have to factor in higher costs to deliver their products and services to British Columbians.

All these things demonstrate that we have to be very prudent, very careful with the budget, with that $70 billion plus that we are given the responsibility for in this Legislature to allocate through government, through cabinet, and to hold government to account. When I say “hold government to account,” I mean all of us. There are roughly 24, maybe 25, soon-to-be cabinet ministers, and they are the ones that get to decide as executive council what happens in here. All the other MLAs, including those on the government side who aren’t in cabinet, are there to hold the government to account.

Sometimes when you’re a government MLA and you’re not in cabinet, you get to do that, but most of the time, they usually follow the lead of their party and their government and get to support the budget if they’re on the government side.

[1:15 p.m.]

On the opposition side, our task is to point issues out through the process of second reading and, of course, through the process of estimates so that we can be advocating on behalf of our constituents for a better budget going forward.

The other issue that is coming to mind for me for the issue of an uncertain budget in an uncertain time is what’s happening with trade. What’s going to happen with China, and the relationship between China and Canada not being exactly at the best over the last few years, with our trade goods? We rely a lot on the Far East to buy our products — in particular, a lot of our agricultural products. We also rely a lot on our American brothers and sisters to the south to buy our products — our number one trading partner.

What will happen as we see Americans perhaps get more and more made-at-home policies as their polarized politics force them, during elections, to use Canada as a whipping boy to make sure that they can get re-elected down south of the border when it comes to trade? Between the trade balance with the United States and with the Far East — in particular, China — I think there’s a lot of uncertainty.

Another uncertain item, something we’ve been dealing with for the last two years, is the

pandemic. What happens now?

Obviously, we’re in a position today where Dr. Henry, having done her work

for the last couple of years, along with our Minister of Health and government —

and, I would say, supported by the whole Legislature — has taken us to a point

where it looks like we’re going to adapt to COVID being part of our reality, that

there’s no getting rid of COVID. It’ll just mutate in different ways, and we’ll

have to protect those that need the most protection and protect ourselves in the

way we interact with our fellow citizens.

But what if? What if somewhere in Africa or somewhere in South America, North America, Europe, Asia or somewhere else it mutates again, mutates in a different way which isn’t the way it is now, and we need to shut things down again? What if? There are a lot of what-if questions. I’m not a scientist. I don’t have the answer to that question. I rely on our scientists to provide us with the right answers, but I still think it’s an uncertainty, an uncertainty that could have an impact on the resources that we’ve allocated in this budget, where they go and how much they are. We’ll have to keep track of that, very close track.

The last thing for the

preamble…. I’ve already used half my time in the

preamble. I just love budgets, because you can go on forever. I would take the dedicated speaker role, but it has already been taken by our House Leader, so I’ll keep within my 30 minutes.

The other thing is the environment. I look at home. When I talk to people — friends, constituents — I say: “Look, it’s really important that government does things, provides incentives and shows a vision and leadership when it comes to environment.” But it’s also important that we all look in the mirror.

What are we doing when it comes to the environment? What are we doing when it comes to how much we use our vehicles? Where do we use our vehicles? What kind of vehicles do we own? Can we use an alternate source of fuel? Is that possible? It’s not possible everywhere in our province. In some parts, it’s very difficult to travel long distances using an EV, for example. But can we do that?

What can we do in our homes? How can we tighten our homes a little better so we don’t have those drafts in winter? Those drafts in winter are actually energy that we are just throwing out through our windows or cracks in the doors or whatever. That’s another thing that we have to look at. What can we do ourselves?

Then, of course, not only do we have to make sure we reduce our environmental footprint, but we also have to make sure we are properly prepared for things that we’ve had in the past and that will come more often: the heat domes; the fires, which, you, of course, Madam Speaker, are very closely aware of; the floods; and any other environmental calamity that can come on to our land base and our citizens.

What are we going to do to make that sure we are more robust in protecting our citizens so that they know when something is coming and we can help them protect themselves or protect them in the case of large-case matters like the fire in Lytton and other places?

That’s the

preamble to my comments on the budget. It really is an uncertain budget for uncertain times. When I read through the budget, I find that it really lurches from one place to another.

[1:20 p.m.]

I remember some budgets in the past. One of my first budgets was when I was a town councillor in Banff. One of the councillors who was well-known for his very tight-fisted business practices got elected, and he came to the council meeting with a hatchet. He put his hatchet on the table as a signal as to what he wanted to do with the budget, as we prepared to put this budget together for the town. So it was very clear where he was going, right? I knew exactly where he was going.

When we first got elected — Steve Thomson, former Speaker, my colleague, of course, from

Kelowna-Mission, and the current member for Kelowna West, who is in the House with

us still…. When the three of us first got elected…. We were elected in 2009. Then

Premier Campbell, after going through the sub-prime mortgage crisis, said: “We’re

going to have to make some tax changes.” The HST was introduced to caucus at the

time.

Well, it was very clear where he was going with the budget. Very clear. I’m not saying it turned out the way that he probably thought it would turn out, but that’s the way of budgets. You put your best foot forward, and sometimes things get accepted, and sometimes they don’t. I would hope there are things in this that also won’t get accepted — things like increasing salaries for ministers if the budget isn’t balanced. That is one thing I would hope that, on second thought, on better reflection, the government would decide that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

Or charging people higher taxes for buying a used vehicle. You know, really? Even in the budget document, it talks about how that particular item is going to hurt or impact people in lower-income and middle-income families. Well, now is not the time to raise taxes on lower- and middle-income families. The way it’s going to work is quite interesting.

I use “interesting” in quotations. Interesting that you can go out and make a good deal on

a used vehicle. But if it isn’t the same deal as the average cost, in other words,

as good a deal as the rest of the people have made — in other words, it’s a better

deal than everybody else — you get penalized for that.

Now, think about it. Where is the incentive to go out and make a good deal if you’re going to get taxed the difference? I would imagine that the incentive is that you’re making a good deal, and therefore, you’ll save some money there. But still, it sends the wrong message. You want people to actually get out there and strive. You want them to try to achieve better things for themselves.

The government is sending the message that we want to pay ourselves more, as ministers, if the budget isn’t balanced, but we want you to pay more if you strived and you’ve actually achieved something to benefit yourself and your family. It just doesn’t seem to be in balance with the way I would look at the world and say that you should be rewarding people for their hard work. You should be actually giving them incentive to go out and make better deals — to lower the prices of vehicles and to lower the prices of houses.

Heaven forbid we see policies that would lower the prices of houses and vehicles. Do you know how high they’ve gotten lately? They’re expensive, and it would really be beneficial to send that message at a very high level.

You talk about billions of dollars? A lot of people don’t get billions of dollars. It goes over their heads, sometimes. You know, $10 billion for this; $5 billion for that. But you start talking about $200, $300 out of their pocket? That’s when you start getting phone calls. And I know it, because I’ve been getting phone calls for 13 years, now. Again, it’s been an honour to be representing my constituents.

Those taxes are up. There are other taxes that are up, but I’m sure that some of my colleagues will bring that up, because I notice, already, I’ve got 20 minutes gone, and I still haven’t done maybe 1/10 of what I was going to talk about. So I’ll just skip to other things.

The deficit is up. The deficit being up, as I said — an uncertain budget, an uncertain time — I don’t believe is a very good idea. The reason why is that if we continue to increase the deficit — and we have structural deficit, now, for the next three years, as projected in here — and we have no incentive to return to a balanced budget, because we are not penalizing ministers for putting forward an unbalanced budget for the whole province, then what we are doing is we are limiting our abilities to adjust to all these uncertainties that we will be facing as a province and as an economy.

[1:25 p.m.]

When I was teaching business for nine years at Okanagan College, Okanagan School of Business, I had a very interesting thing that always came back from my students. They would present me with strategic plans. They’d come up with big documents — actually, thick like this — strategic plans showing how their business was going to be doing, and frequently, it was a hockey stick.

Their graphs were hockey sticks. In other words, they would show the past — one number,

the next number, the next number, the next number — and then: “Here’s where we are

today.” Then their projection would be: “Oh, and now we’re going up.” The hockey

stick, right? Straight line down, but: “Now we’re going up, because we’ve taken

over.” I would point out to them that that’s probably a little

unrealistic.

Well, it’s the same thing we have in this budget. You look on page 4, right smack at the

beginning — interest bite for taxpayer-supported debt going down, down, all

through those wonderful 16 years we were in government. Then all of a

sudden, in ’21-22, the hockey stick kicks in, and we see debt going up —

interest bite for taxpayer-supported debt.

That’s before interest rates go up. Watch what happens when interest rates start going up, and they have to, because we have the inflation coming in. If inflation is at 5 percent or 6 percent this year, you can be sure that interest rates are going to be going up, according to the pundits. Again, I would say that these are things that we have to watch out for.

Taxpayer-supported debt-to-GDP ratio. Right now the budget estimate is 20 percent. It goes on to 21.8 percent and then just shy of 23 percent at the end of the hockey stick. Taxpayer-supported debt-to-revenue: 111 percent. Next year: 123 percent. The year after that: 130 percent. Again, these aren’t good things.

Over the past number of years, before this government took over, we were able to take the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the recession, pay off our debts and provide the capacity for the current government to do the good work that they got elected to do. Now it’s really important, because of all the uncertainty in the world, to make sure that we continue to watch where our spending is going, and we can do that if we plan properly.

We also have other notable areas. I’m going to take the six minutes that I have left just

to bring attention to a few things that, in particular, some of my local

constituents have asked me to bring forward. One is, and I’ll just read

verbatim:

“I’m writing to you on behalf of my family, who at the end of this month will be homeless due to the shortage of rental housing in Kelowna.”

You can probably read this in many places around the province.

“Something needs to be done. I understand and see that there have been numerous housing complexes built over the last few years. However, the size of these units is very limited, and the rental prices are unreal.

“We have excellent long-term employment, with likely above-average income and excellent references. However, our credit needs a little improvement. If we were to apply for a mortgage, we would likely not be approved. That is why we are renting instead of purchasing, and we have been denied on some rental applications due to our credit, which isn’t right. Anyone doing a credit check on you for any reason should be a lender, not a rental agency that does not report to the credit bureau. The ability to do a credit check as a factor on whether or not you qualify for a rental property should not be allowed.

“We hope that there will be changes in the near future, as the working-class citizens of Kelowna will no longer be able to live here due to the affordability and availability of housing, and businesses will struggle to find employees, even more so than they’re experiencing right now.”

Again, something that we could address in this budget. I hope it is addressed in this budget. As we go through the estimates process, I’m sure we’ll get more meat on the bone and see whether this particular issue has been handled in the budget for our constituent.

Another item is the need for medians — I’ve already spoken to the Minister of Transportation on this, so it’s no surprise — and the need to finish the medians between Kelowna and Lake Country. When we were in government, we built the medians between Kelowna and Vernon, and we left a little strip unmedianed — I don’t know if that’s a word, but I’ll put it in there — between the airport and Lake Country because of all the ins and outs and traffic.

At the time, the accident rate in that area was really low. Well, last year we had a fatality in that area. It’s time we finished the job of putting the medians in, and we just hope that the money is in the budget for that to be done. Again, during estimates we’ll find out.

[1:30 p.m.]

Another one is to fix the Glenmore Road–Beaver Lake Road–Highway 97 intersection. That is something that I know the city of Kelowna as well as the district of Lake Country and the province have been putting their mind to, so I want to make sure those funds are in the budget as well. Again, through estimates, we’ll have a look at that.

The last one in transportation is the Highway 97 and Crystal Waters intersection. We have a need there. I understand that the studies have been done. The ministry is supportive of it. We just have to make sure that there’s money in the budget to deliver on that priority.

Lastly, if I don’t go through all the other things I wanted to talk about, are the priorities for the city of Kelowna. Now, the city of Kelowna currently has three MLAs advocating for it, and we work really well together. We actually call ourselves Team Okanagan and enjoy that. We have the broader Team Okanagan, of course — and I think you’re included in that, Madam Speaker — along with the other members in the B.C. Liberal caucus that are in the Okanagan.

Because of that, these particular issues, while they would help Kelowna directly, would have a big impact for all the area of the Interior. They are: complex-care housing; a Kelowna community campus — that, in particular, is Parkinson Rec Centre; transit operation centre; retroactive pay for the RCMP for all of the work that they’ve done, estimated at about $12 million; and money for climate action to support the work that the city of Kelowna has been doing.

Lastly, in the two minutes that I have left, or less, I want to advocate for our schools. When I look at the budget, I see a lot of references to spending all across British Columbia, in particular in the Lower Mainland. I understand the population is in the Lower Mainland, and therefore, a big chunk of the money should get there. But the only thing I found in the budget in the large items and capital for the Okanagan was a student housing project at Okanagan College. I didn’t see anything in here for schools or for big highway projects or any other large project.

Now, I know the budget is a quasi-political document, but I certainly hope that this is not indicative of where the government thinks it can spend money and where it can’t spend money for political reasons. I can tell you that we have a great need for all kinds of investment, just like everyone else does in this Legislature, but in particular, in schools.

Rutland Middle School is a very old school. I’ve had so many Ministers of Education come through and see it that I’ve lost count. I would really, really, on behalf of my constituents, hope that somewhere in here, there is money to replace Rutland Middle School. We also need new schools in Glenmore, both elementary and high schools. We need a new school in West Kelowna, which I understand might be announced pretty soon.

I know that signal, when you take your mask off, because I used it for over a year. I only have 15 seconds left, and I will not give you the pleasure of cutting me off.

I will say, Madam Speaker, thank you again to the people of Kelowna–Lake Country for

providing me with this privilege of representing them.

To the Premier and cabinet, please remember the needs of the Central

Okanagan in this budget.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

Hon. B. Ralston: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Welcome to the chair, and congratulations on your election as the Assistant Deputy Speaker.

It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to the budget. Let me begin by thanking the Minister of Finance and her team, who have laboured long and hard to put this budget together.

In the last two years, British Columbians have been challenged — as I think we’re all aware and still absorbing — in ways that we’ve never imagined. Investments that our government made helped us through this difficult time. Some would have us roll back those investments and cut programs that would hurt those getting back on their feet and halt our economic recovery.

Budget 2022 is making life better by building on our economic, environmental and social strengths. We’re fighting climate change and protecting people from climate-related disasters.

[1:35 p.m.]

We’ve significantly reduced the cost of child care, helping families with the cost of living. We’ve delivered a comprehensive approach to respond to and prevent homelessness. We’re closing the digital divide and growing an inclusive and sustainable economy. We’re strengthening health care and the public services British Columbians rely on.

We’re building on our strengths to help us prepare for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. I would support what the member for Kelowna–Lake Country said, that these are uncertain times. Certainly, the outbreak of war in Europe today really signals and heightens that awareness of just how challenging the future looks to not only us here, but to the citizens of British Columbia, and indeed, citizens around the world.

Here in British Columbia, with this budget, we are building a stronger society by putting

people first. We’re reducing the average child care cost to $20 a day, and we’re

on the road to $10 a day. Maybe not as fast as some would wish. But we’re on the

road in that direction. And 40,000 new spaces. And $3.2 billion to build a better

health care system, a stronger health care system. New urgent and primary care

centres and speeding up emergency response times. Preventing and responding to

homelessness, supporting youth in care, some rent supplements and 20 new complex

care sites.

We are building a stronger environment for our future: $1 billion in new CleanBC investments to make clean options more affordable and $2.1 billion to build back from recent climate-related disasters and protect people in the future.

In this budget, we are contributing to building a stronger economy. I’ll talk a little bit

later about some of the indices of economic strength in British Columbia that are,

in some cases, a record: $1.2 billion in annual funding for affordable housing,

three times what it was in 2017. We’re building the labour force of today through

skills training for the jobs of tomorrow. And $27.4 billion in infrastructure.

That’s a record-high allocation for infrastructure, building schools, hospitals

and highways, and that will create an estimated 100,000 jobs. High-speed Internet

for 280 First Nations communities and rural and remote communities as well. Core

funding to 50-plus sexual assault centres.

I think it’s important to place this budget in its economic context. The budget in April 2021…. The member just speaking had spoken about deficits. That budget, which was tabled two months later than typically tabled, in April 2021, projected a $9.7 billion deficit. The third quarterly report, which is the report that chronicles the progress of spending in the budget to the end of December last year, projected a deficit of $483 million, so a substantial decline in the deficit to that point.

There is still, while we’re halfway through the final quarter…. The fourth quarter ends on

March 31, the end of the fiscal year. What do the tables in the budget say about

that?

I’m just quoting from page 125: “The province’s operating results have

improved significantly from the budget projection of a $9.7 billion deficit.

However, these results are not final as there remains much uncertainty in the last

quarter of the fiscal year.” That’s January, this month and March. “As a result,

the forecast allowance is unchanged at $1 billion.” Typically, a forecast

allowance declines as you get closer to the end of the budget year, because you

have a clearer sense of what the expenditures are going to be.

At the end of December, a $483 million deficit was projected. Given that there is a $1 billion forecast allowance — the Ministry of Finance is understandably very prudent on these things, and they’re not saying this — I think it’s possible that the budget might generate a small surplus by the end of the year.

[1:40 p.m.]

Now, I think that really is a measure of the prudence and the caution with which the budget was approached in the last budget year. The surplus that was generated, and I think it’s fair to comment, was also generated by a surplus attributable to a resurgent ICBC.

The public accounts. All the revenue of Crown corporations is consolidated on the balance

sheet of the government. This last fiscal year was a very strong year for ICBC: a

projected $1.904 billion forecast in revenue. That revenue is forecast on the

balance sheet. It does not accrue to the government. It is not spent by the

government. So the results of this spectacular success and the remaking of ICBC

form part of the final number, but the people in Finance, those experts there, do

not expect that that will continue into the following year. It’s a one-time gain,

particularly on investment income.

The prudent thing to do, which is what is projected for the following years, and this budget as well, is to project a deficit. But I think we need to bear that history in mind in order to assess whether that is likely to come about or whether, just as happened in the previous fiscal year, that projected deficit is lowered substantially by year-end.

People are paying less for automobile insurance and received several rebate cheques. These are significant. The member for Kelowna–Lake Country just said in his remarks that $200 or $300 is a big deal for most people. This morning the member for Kamloops–North Thompson said that an amount of $200, which he was using as an example of additional cost in purchasing a vehicle, was a big deal.

What did the leader of the Liberal Party say about those rebate cheques — some $500, some

$400? Exactly what the member for Kelowna–Lake Country, exactly what the member

for Kamloops–North Thompson were talking about. He called the ICBC refund cheques

“stupid little cheques.” That’s what he called them.

Most families would welcome a cheque for $500. Most families would welcome a cheque for $300. Only someone as elitist and out of touch as Kevin Falcon could say something like that, and the members approved it by their statements about how important those small amounts are to ordinary people. Of course, he’s forgotten his history. He’s forgotten that when he was in the House, the so-called climate action dividend in the 2008 budget….

Carole Taylor was the Finance Minister. Let me quote from her budget remarks in that budget: “…today we are announcing an upfront payment of $100 to every woman, man and child in British Columbia.”

Interjection.

Hon. B. Ralston: Yeah, 2008. That’s right.

Interjection.

Hon. B. Ralston: Well, I’ll leave that to you. You’re very learned. Yeah, very learned.

So $100 back then was something that…. Kevin Falcon was a minister in the government and clearly supported it then. A stupid little cheque. I guess he didn’t say that back then, certainly, but now, when it comes to assessing the impact of the remaking of ICBC, and savings that are passed on to the people of British Columbia, he attacks that process.

British Columbia — the economy here — is the envy of the country. Due to the exceptionally good management of the public health emergency and its impact on economic life here in British Columbia, we have achieved a level of certainty — not completely resolved yet, but relative to other jurisdictions not only in Canada but across North America — that is encouraging business to resurge.

[1:45 p.m.]

Many British Columbians, many companies, have made major investments in British Columbia during this time. Let’s talk about a couple of sectors. One of the sectors would be the technology sector.

The online publication BetaKit talks about what’s happening in the technology sector. “With nearly $4 billion in venture funding raised last year, British Columbia’s tech sector reached new heights in 2021 as start-ups across the province proved their ability to scale.” I’m quoting Chris Neumann from Panache Ventures. Now, “2021 really feels like the year when B.C. stepped into the spotlight and took its rightful place as a major player on the global tech stage.”

That’s what happened last year in British Columbia. It was an increase in investment of 316 percent from 2020. This was widespread across the tech sector. It’s not simply one big deal. Thinkific, an online learning company, $184 million in an IPO; Copperleaf, an asset management software company, $161 million in an IPO; Diligent Corp., an acquisition of Vancouver Galvanize for $1 billion. Deals spanned health tech, clean tech, gaming and blockchain, with niche sectors of Web3, AR-VR and applied AI.

That’s one sector. We can see the impact of that across the economy, not simply in the Lower Mainland but in Kelowna, in Victoria and other parts of the province as the ability to work remotely has become more accepted. Many of those companies have people who are working yet residing across the province — great strength in our technology sector.

The previous speaker mentioned exports. British Columbia economy exports were booming.

B.C. Stats reports that exports in 2021 — this is B.C. Stats, so a quite reliable

source — totalled $53.9 billion, a 36.1 percent increase over 2020 and the highest

amount ever recorded — highest amount ever recorded. Those are goods exports from

British Columbia. Exports to the United States were up by 37.9 percent, exports up

to China, to Japan and to South Korea. So another index of economic growth and

prosperity here in British Columbia.

Let me give another, I think, revealing index of economic strength here in British Columbia. Interprovincial migration to British Columbia for the 12-month period ending on June 30, 2021, is the largest net gain in interprovincial migration into B.C. in 28 years, since 1993-94 — 34,277 people.

I remember in the political rhetoric of the past government of many years gone by that interprovincial migration, when people moved out of the province, was always attacked as a hallmark of economic weakness of the government. This is the biggest single gain in almost 30 years.

I think it’s fair to say — and I’m sure members opposite would agree, given the logic with which they used the statistic in the past — that it’s a hallmark of economic strength. People want to be in British Columbia. Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they want to be here? It’s a great place to live. It’s a great place to work. It’s a great place to grow a business.

People are voting. They’re coming from Alberta. They’re coming from Ontario. They’re coming from across Canada. That’s simply interprovincial migration. That’s not immigration from abroad, international immigration.

[1:50 p.m.]

Let me make a few comments about another sector, one that I’m directly responsible for in my ministry. That is the mining sector. Again, we faced challenges in 2021, of course, but the total forecast value for mining production in British Columbia in 2021 reached an all-time high of $12.6 billion. Total exploration expenditures — that’s the other side of mining; that’s looking for the mines of the future — of $660 million were near record-setting: a 50 percent increase over the previous year and the highest level in a decade, with growing demand around the world for minerals that play a key role in B.C.’s low-carbon economy.

Naturally, that’s due in part to steep increases in the price for copper and other critical metals and minerals. It’s promising to see that explorers spent more than $218 million, targeting commodities on B.C.’s critical mineral list. Gold continues to be a principle commodity of interest here in British Columbia, with continued substantial investment by industry in 2021.

We’re not simply growing the B.C. companies, which we are. But we’re attracting international mining companies like Newcrest. It’s a global mining giant based out of Australia, which is in the process of acquiring, for $3.5 billion, Vancouver-based Pretium Resources, the operator of the northwest B.C. Brucejack mine.

Newcrest managing director and CEO, Sandeep Biswas, referred to Brucejack as a tier 1 mine in a tier 1 jurisdiction. That’s a pretty high compliment, coming from the chief executive officer of one of the leading mining companies in the world. Based on the knowledge of the global mining picture, complimenting British Columbia as a place to invest, and not simply to talk about investing, but to actually invest $3.5 billion.

Let me talk a little bit about some of the other exciting projects underway here in British Columbia. Last summer, the province enabled early work to start on Artemis Gold’s Blackwater project by approving a Mines Act permit. This is the first step required for mine construction. The Artemis project is west of Quesnel and south of Vanderhoof in the Blackwater country, for those of you who are familiar with that part of the world.

Steven Dean, the chair and CEO of Artemis Gold, put it this way: “The approval of the

early construction works permits is another sign that British Columbia is open for

business for responsible mineral exploration and development.”

Again, Steven Dean, well known in the mining world, took a company in Nova

Scotia from exploration, early stage, to development and sold it for near $1

billion. A very experienced senior mining executive offering that reflection on

the status of British Columbia as a mining destination, as a destination to invest

in, here in British Columbia. Blackwater is a big mine. It’s projected to

contribute $13.2 billion to the provincial economy over the life of the mine,

including $2.3 billion to provincial revenue.

Our government is committed to a competitive mining sector with a focus on strong regulatory oversight, and we’re proud to support continued sustainable growth in B.C.’s mineral exploration and mining sectors.

Let me talk a little bit about mining and reconciliation. Last June, our government entered into a shared prosperity agreement with the Tahltan Central Government, Iskut Band Council and the Tahltan Band Council.

[1:55 p.m.]

This is a historic, government-to-government agreement that commits both governments to accelerate negotiation of an economically oriented, comprehensive reconciliation agreement and to seek federal participation in those negotiations.

Turning to the Cariboo region, the ministry recently approved the expansion of the Bonanza

Ledge underground mine, which is near Barkerville in the Cariboo. It is a partner

between the Lhtako Dené First Nation and Osisko Development Corp.

Chief Clifford Lebrun of the Lhtako Dené First Nation said about the

project: “This partnership illustrates that First Nations and industry can work

together in a good way for the benefit of both partners, economically and with

community growth for Wells, Quesnel and the Lhtako Dené nation. It’s more than

jobs and contract opportunities or training. It’s the development and growth of

all three communities and all the ones in between that is important

here.”

This agreement, this investment…. Osisko is a company that practices ESG. It’s very closely monitored by ESG investors and attracts money from many pension funds. So the standard of operation of Osisko is a very high one. They are very proud of what they’ve negotiated in terms of this agreement and the impact that it will have on the region. It will bring, of course, jobs and training to support economic growth in the region.

I see I have a little bit of time left. I want to talk a little bit about a couple of other topics. One of the responsibilities of my ministry, together with that of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, is fighting climate change and helping build a cleaner, stronger B.C. for everyone by investing in the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030. That road map was a recent update of our climate plan, which was put forward some months ago. It builds on this budget.

Budget 2022 builds on the $2.3 billion allocated to date for CleanBC and provides more than $1 billion in new funding to continue existing CleanBC measures and implement new initiatives identified in the road map.

It includes money for new operating funding to support clean transportation, energy efficient buildings and to support industry and communities to manage the transition to a low-carbon economy. This will mean substantial new investments in electric vehicles, clean tech and innovation, clean industry, local government climate action and clean buildings and retrofits — the full suite of programs that is contained in the Roadmap to 2030 .

In this time, when we’ve all experienced in the last year the impact of the direct effects

of climate change…. There may have been doubters in the past, but those number of

doubters I think is diminishing steadily, particularly after the heat dome, after

the fires, after the floods, all attributed in large part — not entirely but in

large part — to the impact of climate change on our physical landscape.

Let me also talk about, if I might, our zero-emission vehicle targets which is again a responsibility of my ministry. British Columbia is already leading North America in uptake rates of zero-emission vehicles at 13 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2021, five years ahead of the original target. British Columbians have taken up the call to buy light-duty vehicles. I think some of the challenges in some respects is that dealers can’t source enough vehicles to meet the demand.

The budget also invests an additional $79 million to continue our CleanBC go electric programs and support this strong update. One of the key expenditures there will be expanding the charging network.

One of the concerns that people have when they purchase an electric vehicle is that they will be able to predictably and reliably charge that vehicle when they travel outside of maybe their home to office or home to grocery store commute. But if they venture out beyond their normal range of commuting, will they be able to encounter reliable charging?

[2:00 p.m.]

That’s essential for the growth of the EV market, and that is something that our government — together with private industry, together with the federal government and together with municipal governments — is investing in and developing: an extensive, reliable charging network. That will assist the purchase of, the growth of and the turnover of the fleet of vehicles to become zero-emission vehicles.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The other thing that we’re doing is we’re putting money into the low-carbon fuel credit program to support the light-duty zero-emission vehicle rebates and encourage the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles in B.C. The low-carbon fuel credit standard and the credits that result from it is one of the most significant and practical ways of reducing emissions, and it will help British Columbia meet its legislative emissions reduction targets.

In fact, the program, together with…. California and British Columbia are perhaps the North American leaders in this. When the federal government decided to initiate a similar program to take across the nation, they modelled themselves upon the British Columbia program. This is not, particularly, a partisan issue. This is something that came about back in 2008, 2009, and the standard has developed since then.

It’s somewhat discouraging to hear the member for Kamloops–North Thompson speak against

the low-carbon fuel standard, objecting to the fact that it requires a premium to

be paid to the province of British Columbia in order to have this policy that

reduces…. It’s proven to reduce emissions, encourage sustainable economic

development and continues funding in low-carbon innovation and creates good-paying

jobs.

That’s an innovation that has existed as government policy from the previous government to our government, and it’s being enhanced and supported widely; yet, apparently, the members opposite no longer support that. I’m not sure what the position of the new leader is. But I’m sure that we’ll hear in due course, should he win the by-election that he says he’s going to challenge in Surrey, whenever that comes. That was an interview that he gave, I think, yesterday.

The other thing that falls in my ministry that’s related to the CleanBC program is the buildings program. As you will know, buildings are an important source, a significant source, of emissions, and engaging energy efficiency in buildings is very important to reduce overall emissions. It’s one of the biggest sources of emissions, along with transportation.

I see that my time is steadily ticking down here. There is a lot more that I could talk

about, and I hope to get the opportunity to do that in estimates or in question

period, if that should be the wish of the members of the opposition.

I want to thank members very much for the opportunity to speak briefly

about Budget 2022. I, for one, will be strongly supporting the budget.

M. Morris: You know, it brings back memories. As a young boy, I grew up dirt poor, didn’t have much, and when I finished high school, I skedaddled right out of the community I was in. I went and I worked in the mines of northern Manitoba, making good coin then. I think I was making $3 an hour working underground.

I got my first credit card. I had a ball with that credit card. I racked it right up to

the maximum in very short order, bought a whole bunch of things that I thought

were important in life. Then the reckoning came where I had to pay this credit

card off. I wasn’t making much every couple of weeks or every month. Lo and

behold, I got another credit card offered to me. I took that too, and I racked

that up to the maximum.

[2:05 p.m.]

It’s a good thing that back in those days, back in the late ’60s, early ’70s, racking your

credit card to the max was probably about 1,000 bucks a credit card or

something like that. But it didn’t take me five years to figure out that I

needed to pay it off. As soon as it was brought to my attention, I had to

adjust my lifestyle and live within my means.

This government…. I think it would be coming of age. It came into government in 2017 — not poor, not dirt poor. It had a $3 billion surplus that it inherited when it took over the reins of government in this province. But it hasn’t figured out yet that those credit cards have to be paid off. They haven’t figured out that there are two sides to a ledger. There is your debit side and a credit side.

Everything that we see in this budget is on the credit side. It’s borrowing money to pay for a bunch of services. There is nothing that I could see in this, and I looked high and low for this. I don’t have the book in front of me here, but there was a

section in there called “Incoming Revenue” or something like that. I looked in there, and all it talked about was taxes. It didn’t talk about anything else.

We have a serious situation on our hands here. This government is operating under the mantra of affordability. We hear that all the time: “Affordable — making it affordable for the working people of British Columbia. We’re not going to raise taxes for the low- and middle-income folks. We’re going to make life more affordable to them.” And they haven’t raised taxes. They’ve raised taxes for corporate B.C. They’ve raised taxes for those in the higher incomes.

What they did to the low- and middle-income folks is that they raised the cost of living

for them by imposing all these 30-some different taxes — new taxes, higher taxes.

It’s impacted every household in British Columbia, particularly the rental

households, with the high rents now that everybody is paying, and the high

mortgages that everybody’s got, with the low interest rates that could soon

change.

Everybody talks about inflation. Affordability and inflation don’t seem to

be…. They’re opposite one another here. I think that this government is probably

responsible for a lot of the inflationary things that we see taking place in

British Columbia.

Now, we talk about the carbon tax. I left the figures in my office, but the carbon tax has gone up to $45 a tonne. It will go up to $50 a tonne. But that impacts everything that we do in British Columbia. If you want to drive to work, you’re paying, probably, an extra 50 bucks, 100 bucks a month to drive your vehicle back and forth to work — a little bit more up where I come from, because everybody drives pickup trucks back and forth and into the bush or wherever they have to go to work.

Not only that. It’s the groceries that we have delivered to us from the Lower Mainland up

into the Interior, hitting all the stores along the way — the groceries that are

delivered from Alberta coming into the Interior of the province. We saw the impact

to the supply chain, of course, when we had the disastrous floods this past fall

here that impacted the supplies in our grocery stores.

Those trucks run on diesel fuel. The forklifts that load the trucks run on propane or diesel fuel. Those costs aren’t borne by the trucking companies. The trucking companies don’t say: “Okay, I guess we’ll have to suck it up and keep hauling all these groceries for everybody.” They’re going to add it on to the cost of your lettuce, your eggs and everything else that they haul. The low- and middle-income people, when they go to buy their groceries, are paying those extra costs.

Now, I had a chance to look at a fuel bill and the carbon tax on this fuel bill. This was

a couple of years ago. The gas pipeline that supplies all the natural gas from

northeast B.C. down into the Lower Mainland and down into the northwest United

States has compressor stations. These compressor stations, operating in different

areas of the province here — some of them are quite remote — are running off of

these large jet engines, and they utilize a lot of the gas in these pipelines to

run the compressor stations.

[2:10 p.m.]

The carbon tax on these compressor stations was astronomical. I couldn’t believe the thousands of dollars that were added to the bills, for the carbon tax, to run these compressor stations. Enbridge doesn’t swallow that up and say, “I’m doing it for the good of all the folks in British Columbia here or the northwest United States.” They add that on to the delivery charges.

When the low-income, middle-income families look at their natural gas bills that come in every month and look at the delivery charges that have gone up significantly in the province, they say: “Holy smokes. We’re going to have to turn the thermostat down in order to live here.” Then added onto that is the carbon tax for the gas that I’m using to heat my home. So low- and middle-income people feel that.

The clothing that they buy doesn’t just appear miraculously. The clothing is shipped in trucks that burn diesel. Added costs are there.

The recent announcement of PST on used vehicles and finding that average price and

whatnot. What’s happening with British Columbians now, particularly the low- and

middle-income folks — I think a lot of other folks are looking at this avenue as

well — is they’ve changed their shopping methods. The people are going to the

grocery store now, and they really look to see what they can buy. Can they get by

with something just a little less costly that’s still providing the nutrients that

they need for their family? So they’re looking at those things.

They’re looking at the same thing for used cars. All of a sudden, this government has

invented a new way to capture the tax on these used cars that people are looking

for to try and ease the burden of the cost of living. This new world of

affordability in NDP language is unaffordability in everybody’s else’s language.

Like, how can you afford to live when all these taxes are going up and pushing up

everything?

I think the tax levels that this government has been imposing have been the impetus behind the high inflationary rates that we see here in the province. The property transfer tax is a real bonus for the folks here in British Columbia. Because the cost of housing has gone up so much, government is just reaping windfalls with those taxes. But again, it’s borne by the people that are paying for those houses.

I want to talk a little bit about the tax structure in the province here and the money

that government is investing. They’ve got it in the budget here. They’re

investing in the Broadway transit. They’re investing in other transit lines

in the GVRD. They’re talking about — and they’ve talked about for years now

— investing in new hospitals in Surrey and Richmond. But this goes contrary

to some legislation that the NDP brought in back in the ’90s. It’s the

southern B.C. transportation act.

What it was…. Back in the late ’90s, the NDP government came in, and they said: “Listen,

all you mayors, everybody living in the GVRD. What we’re going to do is let you

take over all the transit. You’re going to be responsible for all the transit

within the GVRD. You can levy taxes — fuel taxes, parking taxes. You can do all

these things. You can raise money, but you guys look after transit.”

“If you guys do that, what we’re going to do is take over all your hospital debt. We’re

going to take over the responsibility that you folks have to pay hospital tax

within the GVRD, and we’ll look after providing you with all the hospitals that

you need in the Lower Mainland.”

That was a great deal, but it only applied to the GVRD. Then comes 2018, and government starts making these promises on transit infrastructure in the GVRD, but they’re still talking about building hospitals. And they basically took over the building of transit in the Lower Mainland. At the same time, they’re still promising to build these hospitals.

[2:15 p.m.]

I look at my riding in Prince George–Mackenzie. I’ve got a Mackenzie Hospital that’s on

diversion half the time because it doesn’t have enough nurses and doctors to

operate in there. The Prince George Hospital has got 1950s-era operating rooms

that aren’t big enough to accommodate the modern equipment that most surgeries

need in today’s world. It was slated for rebuilding back in the 1990s — the

previous NDP government — and construction was started in the 1990s. It was

finished in about 2001, after the NDP government got out.

What happened in the interim was that they started building, and realizing they didn’t

have enough money, they cancelled a lot of the project. We ended up going from a

400-bed hospital to a 200-bed hospital, and that’s what we have today.

There are no cardiac services in that hospital. Anybody that has cardiac problems in Northern Health, the only health authority in B.C.… They have to be flown down to St. Paul’s or another hospital in the south, accommodated in that hospital and, hopefully, flown back. Sometimes they’re not. Families have to drive down, pick them up and bring them home again, back to Prince George. It’s 850 kilometres from Prince George to Vancouver, so it’s a big burden.

I didn’t see anything in the budget dealing with the North. I didn’t see anything in the budget dealing with a lot of the infrastructure projects that we so sorely need in the North in order to make sure that all the goods and…. The Minister of Mines was talking about the mine near Prince George. All that stuff has to get south somehow so they can reap the $1.9 billion legacy that the government is going to get out of this. We have to beg, in northern B.C. and rural B.C., for the scraps that are left on the table in order to get something for our health care, for our hospitals.

Folks in my area…. We’ve only got 6 percent of the population, from Cache Creek north, in B.C., so we don’t have many people — 300,000 or 330,000 people. That’s not very many people, and there are very few MLAs up there that can make the noise necessary to ensure that we get our fair share of whatever we need.

The other issue that caught my attention in this, and it’s caught my attention looking at the previous budget documents as well, is the major increase in the public payroll, in the public service. When we left government in 2017, I think there were something like 390,000 public service employees in the public sector. Now I think we’re right around 500,000, maybe tipping the scales a little bit north of 500,000 in the last few years. Of those, 400,000 are unionized employees, so I’m sure the BCGEU and the unions are very grateful for the NDP’s support on that.

It has also included thousands of new folks working in government or ministry offices —

thousands. Think there are up to 37,000 people working in government services as

well. Those come with a big price tag — union wages, good benefits. There are

probably some wage increases expected — perhaps not as much as cabinet’s increase

of $20,000 that’s coming down the pike here for them but still a raise in the

meantime. And probably not as good a raise as the Premier’s chief of staff,

another $100,000 in a year, but still raises. This all comes out of the public

purse. This all comes out of the taxpayer’s wallet to support this.

Now, the other vacancy that I noticed within the budget…. You know, we are a resource-driven economy in British Columbia. The Minister of Energy and Mines referenced it a little bit. But I know he skated…. He didn’t even talk about the petroleum side of things, the oil and gas sector, which is bigger than forestry and bigger than mining. But they did mention in the document that forestry…. I think the Minister of Forests mentioned the other day that forestry is the cornerstone of the economy in British Columbia.

Forestry contributed last year about 1.9 percent of the overall GDP, but if it was the cornerstone of British Columbia’s economy, why has government been so, so confusing, so obscure in their plans for forestry for the province? They’ve had five years in government now to figure out how to fix whatever is wrong with forestry and put it back on its wheels again or come up with alternate solutions.

[2:20 p.m.]

The budget documents show that we’re going to lose over $1 billion during this budget forecast period from forestry alone — a billion bucks. Pretty significant. So how are we going to replace that $1 billion? What are we going to be looking at for that?

The budget document also says that mining is going to drop about 25 percent annually, gas and oil down 20 percent annually. That’s revenue coming into government. That’s what they use to pay for this over-bloated public service that we have in this province here, the bulging offices that we have in Victoria here. That’s where a lot of these dollars have to go.

The Minister of Mines talked a little bit about some opportunities we see in mining. We have some fabulous opportunities for mining in this province. If this government is serious about electrifying British Columbia like they have talked about, and the incentives for electric vehicles and the entire electrification process…. All that stuff comes from the ground. That stuff comes from Mount Milligan. It comes from the Brucejack Mine that the minister talked about. It comes from the Highland Valley Copper.

We have some pretty good copper deposits in this province, but we have to dig them out of the ground. It takes fuel to dig those out of the ground. It takes fuel to haul them down to wherever they’re going to be processed. But we have them in the ground. We have the gold. We have the silver. We’ve got all the precious metals necessary to help electrify this province, and we can put thousands of people to work doing that.

The other element that the minister completely ignored, which is going to be part of this

electrification process, is the plastic side, the coverings for the wires. The

vehicles that are made out of polypropylene — a lot of them, nowadays. The

plastics in those vehicles. That comes from the propane in the liquids in the

natural gas. It comes from the ethane. It comes from the butane. All the liquids

that are in the natural gas are a critical part and a critical element of us doing

business in British Columbia, of us electrifying British Columbia.

If you don’t have that, we’re not going to be electrifying, unless you plan on…. This is one solution, I suppose, that government might be looking at so that they can kind of wash their hands of this. The liquids that are contained in the natural gas that is shipped through the up-and-coming Coastal Gaslink line, going to LNG Canada…. It’s a four-foot diameter line. It will contain millions of dollars of these liquids that will be shipped over to Asia, wherever they might go.

They’ll be extracted over there and made into the components, over there, that we need —

our water pipes, our sewer pipes and our hospital supplies. The masks that we’re

wearing in this room probably have some polypropylene in them. Then it’s all going

to be shipped back to British Columbia, and we’re going to say: “Yes. We’re

electrifying the province. We’ve got a clean environment, and we’ve got this. But

we let everybody else do our dirty work for us.”

There was a proponent in Prince George a while ago. He’s very disillusioned with doing business in the province right now, and hopefully we can get some interest going there again. He talked about building a straddle plant over the existing natural gas line in British Columbia. That existing gas line, I think, is a two-foot diameter line, and his calculations indicated that he could extract $1 million to $2 million worth of liquids out of that line in a day, 365 days a year.

If he took the ethane that he took out of that line and turned it into polyethylene, a polyethylene plant would employ 1,000 people. There was enough ethylene in that line to probably have three plants. Then, if we took the propane off of that and developed some polypropylene plants, then we would put another 1,000 people to work.

Then you look at the downstream opportunities from that. If we’re going to turn that into aircraft fuselage, for example — our modern-day jet planes are full of those polymers that are extracted from propane — we could put even more people to work.

If we went to a place like Boeing or we went to somebody like Viking Air, here in

Victoria, and said: “Listen, folks. We’ve got a deal for you. We’ll help you set

up here. We’ll help you manufacture aircraft here. We can build an aerospace

industry in British Columbia that is second to none….” We would have an

opportunity to supply the agricultural sector in western Canada, perhaps even

further than that, with the fertilizer products that would be extracted from these

liquids in the natural gas as well.

We cannot get along in the world without those fossil fuels. We have a 150-year supply in the Montney play — Dawson Creek, Fort St. John area — that’s available. We have transportation through the pipelines that are being built right now.

[2:25 p.m.]

We have an opportunity for major employment for anybody that wants to work in British Columbia, but this government seems to turn a blind eye to that. One of the major ingredients to having an electrified British Columbia, a major ingredient, is the ethylene, propane, polyethylene — all those products that are contained in the oil and gas that we have in the province here.

I’ve got a few minutes left here.

I did notice, as I went through the budget…. It took me a couple of times to read it, to

kind of sink in that there’s really not much in there other than just spending

money. But one of the things I noticed in this document — and I noticed it in the

previous budget as well — is these massive contingencies, billions and billions of

dollars in contingency.

The minister of Energy and Mines, when he was speaking before me, was talking about how they had projected this deficit of several billion dollars, but through good fiscal management, they were able to narrow it down to only a few million dollars. “Therefore, we are great money managers.”

I look at that, and I say: “That’s a pretty good way of doing it.” If I went back to my

credit card companies a long time ago and said: “I’m going to make $10,000. If you

give me a $5,000 credit card or whatever, and then, at the end of the day, I can

pay that $5,000 off….” It just doesn’t make any sense.

I’m looking at this budget now, and I think it’s $10 billion in contingencies that we have piled up, taking us into 2025. That’s a lot of money. I know that we’re going to be looking at things like fire mitigation and the wildfire work that we do there and flood mitigation work, and that’s going to take a lot of money.

You know, this is pretty handy. It’s either of two things. Is the motivation to say, at

the end of the day: “Look here, ladies and gentlemen of British Columbia. We have

done a tremendous job managing this budget. Instead of this $5 billion or $10

billion deficit that we were projecting, we’re only in the hole maybe $1 billion

or a few million dollars. So we have looked after the money on your behalf very

well. Thank you very much”?

The other thing is perhaps we have an election in 2024, and that might give them a little bit of wiggle room to offer a few incentives to the public during that period of time and say: “We’re pretty good. We’re going to be building this.”

Of course, this government has a track record of saying when they’re going to build something…. It does take us a long time. We’re still waiting for something in the Fraser River crossing of the Massey Tunnel. We’re still waiting for the Surrey hospital. We’re still waiting for the Richmond Hospital. We’re still waiting for a number of things that have been promised over this five-year period of time and have been reannounced time and time and time again.

Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it will happen at the end of the day that we will see some of

these major infrastructure projects completed or started. Maybe we’ll see more

than a few homes started to address the serious homelessness issue that we have,

and the supply side of things. You know, it’s easy to talk about building 114,000

homes, but as this government is finding out, it’s another bit to try and get

people to live in them, because there’s quite a gap in there.

The budget is very heavy on the borrowing side, very heavy on the promise side, much like this government has been doing for the last five years. I don’t see anything different there. The public is not well served by a budget like this.

The low- and medium-income folks are carrying the added costs that this government has put on top of industry, has put on top of retail, has put on top of transportation, has put on top of anybody that offers any level of service to the public that these people will take advantage of. These people are going to be broke, and they’ll continue to be broke as long as this government carries on in the kind of fashion that they have here right now.

I look forward to the estimates. I know there are a couple of things that I want to pop the hood open on during estimates. Flood mitigation under the Emergency Program Act, fire, wildfires, forestry, I’m really looking forward to coming down the pike here.

[2:30 p.m.]

Hopefully, we’ll all be enlightened. I’ll look forward to the speeches that the rest of my colleagues make, and hopefully, the members of the government side will be standing up and giving some enthusiastic speeches in support of this budget, if they can drum any enthusiasm up in light of what the budget looks like here.

I look forward to it coming down the pike.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the Minister for Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

Interjections.

Hon. N. Simons: Well, there’s the enthusiasm the member was looking for. It may continue; it may not. I’m not sure.

I’m honoured to be able to stand here, for the first time from this seat, to address this legislation. I guess if it was hockey, I’d keep the puck, but I’m really pleased to be able to stand here and see you all from this vantage point. You’re all in front of me, so that’s good.

I just want to start by acknowledging that I represent the territories of the Shíshálh, the Tla’amin, the Skwxwú7mesh, the Klahoose, the Homalco and other First Nations who have shared agreements and territory on the beautiful Sunshine Coast, just on the Interior. We can see Vancouver Island from my riding, and it’s just an honour to represent the people and the place.

It’s a pleasure to be able to stand here and respond to the budget debate, offer my words of obvious support for a job well done by the Minister of Finance, by her colleagues, by the caucus, by the public service, and I think we owe them a debt of gratitude. I thank them for putting the interests of people of this province at the forefront of their minds as they came up with the plans for stewarding our economy and the province. I think we are in good hands with the minister, with the leadership of this government, and I think this budget reflects that solid leadership.

I just want to also take just a moment to acknowledge the passing of the sister of hiwus Warren Paull in Shíshálh, and acknowledge Lori Dixon for the wonderful community spirit she brought, for her service on the school board, and for her presence in the community in lighting people’s lives with her simple presence in the community and her contribution.

This is Budget 2022. I think it’s one that finally puts the interests of people right at the forefront. Like other budgets of this government, it carries on to ensure that the needs of British Columbians are addressed and are met.

On this sad day in history, with the aggression shown by Russia against Ukraine, it reminds us all of the importance of preserving the institutions of democracy that keep us strong and keep us safe and allow for opportunities for healthy debate, differences of opinion — even strong differences of opinion. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we are all here to ensure that British Columbians’ lives are improved by the stewardship we offer.

One of the things that makes me pleased to be on this side of the House when listening to a budget speech is to recognize that the values that are being spoken of are the ones that we share. We share the need to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are cared for, that our economy is operating to the best ability of circumstances of the time and that we address the needs of British Columbians as they come up.

I just wanted to mention that I’ve heard, in here, some criticisms about the need for spending money and the reflection of some members on using a credit card, in a way that was, perhaps, immature, at the time, for that member.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think that when you look back at the year we’ve just come through, no better reasons for ensuring that we strengthen our resilience can exist than the experiences we’ve lived through. If it’s an opportunity to invest in wildfire protection, in flood prevention and in ensuring that our health care system and our education system meet the needs of today and tomorrow, I think those are valuable and worthy expenditures and certainly justifiable in all circumstances that we’ve seen in this budget.

We need to make sure that we look after people. We need to make sure that those who are without a home can find a place and that those who are without hope and struggling with addiction and mental health issues can find a place and know that their government has them in their heart. I think of the people that I used to work with, and many of them have succeeded well in life.

As a social worker, I came across young people who, through circumstances not of their making, found themselves in challenging situations, with difficulty in accessing the kinds of supports that they needed in order to be successful. Not everyone of them has made it. Not everyone of them has succeeded, not because of the presence or lack of support services in our province, but possibly somewhat related to those. I am so pleased that we’re not in a situation where we are seeing the cuts to programs and services that the opposition is proposing we would have to do.

I’m so glad that we don’t have the Falcon Liberals talking about cuts to child welfare services, that we don’t have the Falcon Liberals talking about cuts to education, to advanced education, to social development. We saw a government, back in 2001 to 2017, that prided itself on cutting services to the most vulnerable or not offering them in the first place.

You know, taking over the helm of a ministry like Social Development and Poverty Reduction is certainly an honour. The gains that we have made need to be protected and need to be strengthened. This budget does that. We saw, for 16 years, minimal increases in social assistance rates or rates for people living with a disability. In fact, in the ten years leading up to the thankful change in government, we saw zero increases to social assistance, zero increases to disability rates.

Since becoming government, we have seen an increase not once, not twice but three times — the most recent, the largest single increase in supports to people who need financial assistance in this province. This is something that the other side would never have even contemplated. They would have probably preferred to remain at the rates that they had in 2006, unchanged since 2006.

I’m pleased to say that while there’s always more work to do in reducing poverty and there’s always more work to do to ensure that people have access to the things that they need in life, we are making strides in the right direction. It doesn’t worry me, but it shocks me that members of the opposition would talk about the need to make cuts when we’re dealing with major health crises, environmental crises, and they’re talking about how we have to tighten our belts.

We need to look after the people of this province. We need to ensure that the resilience that will take us through future crises is put in place. That’s what this budget does. It ensures that with the challenges that lie ahead, whatever they may be, we’ll be more prepared than ever. That’s a responsible government’s position, to take what we see before us and plan to ensure that we are capable of overcoming the challenges that we are likely to face.

[2:40 p.m.]

Whether it’s making the wildfire service a year-round organization that works on prevention or ensuring that we have better flood predictions and river monitoring, those are things that ensure that we can be better prepared for future environmental challenges.

I’ve talked to colleagues about what strikes them as, for lack of a better term, their favourite part of the budget. The parts of the budget that are important to me are obviously those that deal with assisting people who are in need of our help. We are a rich province. We have resources — human resources, natural resources — that help us to create a living, a quality of life that is the envy, if I may say, of many people around the world. In order to steward that well, we need to ensure that everybody in our society is looked after.

One of the things…. I have been a social worker. I noted with pleasure that our government is thinking about the transition of youth to adulthood, youth who are in the care of the province. We are their parent. We have to ensure that they have the right skills and abilities and that their needs are met as they transition to adulthood.

The fact that almost 50 percent of former youth in care experience homelessness at some time in their life is a call for government to step in. It is necessary that we respond as government. You can’t be looking at whether this is a good idea based on finances alone, but it is. It’s most important, based on our care for young people, our care for their success and our interest in them achieving their goals.

Budget ’22, just to be specific, provides $35 million over the next three years to change

the situation I just mentioned by supporting youth beyond their 19th

birthday and to decrease the risk of them becoming homeless. I know that the

opposition isn’t going to point out the things that they find that they can

support in this budget. They will find the few things that they can grab on

to, to try and characterize government in a certain way.

I only know this because I happened to sit on that side for some 12 years. I have sat through many budget speeches, and I found reasons to criticize government. I have to say that in many cases, my fears and my displeasure were well placed. That started in 2005. In 2005, we were in opposition. We were arguing ferociously for the restoration of oversight to the child welfare system.

I’ll point out that it was the Falcon Liberals that took away all oversight of the child welfare system. It was the Falcon Liberals who cut the budgets of the Ministry for Children and Families, an 11 percent cut in one fell swoop. It was the Falcon Liberals who decided that regulations were bad. In fact, it was Kevin Falcon himself, as the minister responsible for deregulation, that gave an award to the Ministry for Children and Families for cutting regulations the fastest.

What was the impact of that, Members? What was the impact of that? I can tell you what the impact of that was. I was a social worker, and I was hired by the government to review the case of a child who was placed in care and who died. That was my introduction to the impacts of the Liberal cuts. That was my introduction, full-faced introduction, to the impacts of unthinking policies simply for the sake of cutting 11 percent from the budget and a Deregulation Sprint Award for the Ministry for Children and Families.

That has motivated me to continue working for better policy, for better oversight of the child welfare system, for better programs and services for those who are vulnerable in our province. We can’t go backwards.

[2:45 p.m.]

I’m pleased to see that the Ministry of Children and Family Development is continuing their investment in shoring up the services for children and youth with support needs, an important process that will make the system better for all families.

I would say that an all-party committee, including the member for Skeena, including the former member from Parksville, including the leader of the Green Party…. They were on that committee. Well, some didn’t show up. We as a committee unanimously said that the system as it stands needed to be fixed. That was a unanimous committee recommendation.

When I hear discussions around the importance of committees…. They’re important if we pay attention to the things that we look into.

Now we see, suddenly, what we learned in our prov­ince­wide consultation,

listening to hundreds of families, care providers, service providers, non-profits

across the province. We should listen to what they said.

We shouldn’t try to wedge an issue as if they weren’t part of that decision-making process. There were members of the opposition on that committee. I chaired that committee. I heard the submissions. I know what we came up with in terms of our findings. To see that change just for political interest, for political points, is troubling.

The committee was a useful committee. It informs public policy, and that’s good. I was honoured to be a part of that. I’m pleased to see that our budget reinforces the findings that we found, as well as other findings of the representative and others, to invest in improving our child welfare system. I think that’s an important step.

We are investing in supporting people experiencing homelessness like never before. Budget

’22 provides $170 million to begin implementation of an enhanced response to

homelessness. We’ve seen governments making great effort with great success,

but we acknowledge that the work has to continue. We don’t sit and rest on

our laurels. We know the work has to continue.

We won’t stand with pride and talk about success in achieving all our goals as long as there are homeless people, as long as there are children at risk, as long as we’re at risk for natural disasters. We need to be resilient in all of those sectors. That’s why I’m really pleased that this budget addresses those issues.

We have partners in our work too. We do have partners. We have partners in the federal

government offering support to our budget by providing rent supplements of

up to $600 to help people access market housing. By ’24-25, more than 3,000

clients will be supported through the program. That’s a start. That’s a very

significant start and one that I will encourage our government to continue

pursuing.

Funding of $4 million for people who are living in homeless encampments around the province…. I risk getting a little bit too emotional on this. When you know people who are homeless personally and when you’ve known them for years and you see programs and services being put in place now that would have perhaps saved their lives, you can’t help but be grateful knowing that finally some attention is being paid to the circumstances that they found themselves in.

[2:50 p.m.]

There are men and women on the street now who are loved by family members somewhere, by friends somewhere, who desperately hope that the programs and services we can offer will give them the hand that they need. Maybe it’s a hand up, a handout, something to help them survive the challenging time that they’re going through.

I think of improving the oversight of recovery homes, expanding our treatment bed system for youth and for adults, of offering navigators to help with getting through the system. Those are so essential. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that the Ministry of Social Development is going to expand the number of community integration specialists that are a part of the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

Those community integration specialists, for those who aren’t familiar, are people who

work on the front lines of this ministry and have heroically, through the last

couple of years of the pandemic, from the floods and the fires and the heat dome….

These are people who go out into the community to ensure that those who don’t come

for services still know that they are available.

Community integration specialists are going to help individuals, whether

they’re struggling with mental illness, addictions, head injury, trauma or if

they’re simply experiencing living in encampments or deep poverty. They’re going

to help connect people to the programs and services that exist in this

province.

That is so essential, because we need to ensure that the supports are there for those who may not always have the ability to make the right decision right at the right moment. Community integration specialists connect individuals to the supports they need, whether they’re financial supports, health supports or other supports. Instead of these silos, we have community integration specialists who will link up those silos and create pathways between a program to the people delivering the programs. I think that is going to have a significant impact on individuals receiving services from the province.

We heard the story of one individual in the North who wasn’t on social assistance and wasn’t aware of their ability to access services. When a community integration specialist came across this gentleman at a soup kitchen and suggested that maybe he wanted to apply — unaware of the supports that existed in this province — he wondered if he was allowed to use the money he was provided just to get a haircut. It was a touching story and one that really underscored to me the importance of establishing human connections and maintaining those human connections.

I think that community integration specialists can do that as a constant person in that individual’s life. They may not be homeless; they may be homeless. But that community integration specialist would work with them as their life may change, as their lives may change for the better. It may be to connect them to housing opportunities, rental housing opportunities, jobs, health care — the things that create strength in our communities. We all know that there are individuals with complex needs whose needs are not necessarily met in our traditional supportive housing concepts, so we are going to be implementing complex supportive care.

I think all British Columbians, whether they know people who are homeless or not, recognize that it’s a sign of a strong society, one that looks after those who are vulnerable. So I’m very pleased that that program is being expanded.

[2:55 p.m.]

I look forward to that work being done, and I’m thankful for the $3 million contribution to that effort, which will be ongoing over a number of years as we identify what sectors need standards created first — the prioritization of the standard development. That is another area that I’m very pleased that my ministry can oversee, going forward.

One social program that was really a creation of government in 2017 was our child care program. I just am so pleased. I don’t have children. I know people who do, and I was one. There is a great need for our economic strength to have a child care system that meets the needs of parents, that is affordable, that has quality and that is available.

This social program obviously takes time to fully implement. We are well on our way to achieving our goals. Nothing happens overnight. But the creation of more child care spaces and more affordable child care spaces benefits communities across the province, including those on the Sunshine Coast. The work of the Minister of State for Child Care, which will soon be moving into the Ministry of Education from the Ministry of Children and Families, deserves a lot of credit for that success.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits has been working very hard with non-profits to ensure that they, too, come out of the pandemic in a way that they can remain resilient. The announcement of $30 million to support non-profits was welcomed in communities across the province, wherever non-profits exist.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Budget 2022 is a sound and important statement of the priorities of this government: to support people, to continue in our efforts to make British Columbia more affordable.

I noted with some bemusement that one member suggested that inflation was caused by provincial policy. I think sometimes there are some localized causes for certain economic situations to occur, but I believe we see inflation broader than simply in British Columbia. But it’s something that we need to be paying attention to.

Supply chain issues need to be something we are paying attention to. Ensuring that we have the workforce necessary for the thousands of jobs that are coming is something that we need to invest in. This isn’t the time to say, as members of the opposition say: “Don’t spend money.” We want to make sure we have enough nurses for the future. We want to make sure we have enough tradespeople for the future. To ensure that we do, we need to invest in the programs and the training system that exists for people choosing those careers.

Interjection.

Hon. N. Simons: One member wants to talk, and I have a minute and 30 seconds left.

When they talk about affordability, they don’t mention MSP going up all the time under their watch. They don’t mention ICBC insurance going up under their watch. They don’t mention the tolls on the bridges or, in some cases, a 100 percent increase in ferry fares.

[3:00 p.m.]

There are four ferries in Powell River–Sunshine Coast. Four ferries can’t be wrong. But when their fares went up by over 100 percent, you know that was a Liberal government that didn’t care much for residents of ferry-reliant communities. That was Falcon — a 104 percent, for the Texada ferry, increase in fares.

I’m glad to say we reduced those fares. We got rid of the tolls, we got rid of the MSP, we

fixed ICBC, and we’re just getting started.

With that, I take my seat.

J. Rustad: Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak here today. I apologize for not being able to be there in person. I do like the idea of being able to be in the Legislature and be able to deliver these speeches in person. It loses something when you’re doing it remotely. We’ve had to do that for the last number of years because of the pandemic, and I’m in a situation today where I’m fortunate that we can still do this.

My father-in-law is in palliative care, so I’m working with my wife to look after what we can for the family. It is a blessing to be able to be here, at home, delivering this, as opposed to being in Victoria.

Budget 2022 touched on a lot of things, which is interesting. Lots of spending, lots of deficits, a huge debt. But I want to tell a bit of a different story, and I want to start, I think, with talking a little bit about health care.

I was in a situation, and I was very blessed during the pandemic in that my parents, who are…. My dad passed away on January 2 of this year. We’re in a situation where we could look after them at home, so we were able to be there with them.

We were able to be there when my mom celebrated her 100th birthday on December 30. We were able to be there through Christmas. We were able to be there with them when my niece got married this past summer. We were able to be there with them when his first great-grandchild was born, over this past year, because we were able to look after him at home.

There are so many people who, over this pandemic, were not able to have family. They were in care. They were not able to have visitors, and I think, quite frankly, we made a mistake through that period of time. I know we’re trying to protect people from being sick, but there were tools that we could have been using.

I got a story from a constituent of mine whose grandfather was in a facility in Smithers. He had a fall and was lying on the floor. The care worker that was there was not qualified to do a lift to get him off the floor, so they had to call an ambulance. The family was standing outside the window for an hour or longer watching the care aide trying to make their grandfather as comfortable as possible, lying on the floor, until an ambulance could arrive.

The previous speaker talked about quality of life and the envy of the world. That is not the envy of the world. That is shameful, and that’s on this government’s watch. That’s on the policies that were brought in. The government can say: “Well, we were following the orders of the public health officer.” Other jurisdictions didn’t do that. Other jurisdictions had other rules.

Government plays a role in looking after people. Government needs to step up and understand that they made some mistakes here. The divisions that are being created in our society today are on government’s head, and it’s not a pleasant thing to see.

I get letters and calls daily from parents that can’t go and watch their kids play sports, from children who are being teased and are hearing the conversations about the fact that their parents aren’t allowed to be there. These divisions in our society are not healthy.

[3:05 p.m.]

It’s why, quite frankly, the Great Barrington declaration was put forward and is now signed by close to one million people. It was put forward by doctors and professionals in the field because they recognized the damage that could be done from the divisions that we can create in society.

Now, fortunately, we’re starting to see these restrictions lift. I think government, quite frankly, should have had a clear time frame for being able to remove these things so that people can start moving on. These divisions that are created now are going to be very hard to heal, especially in communities of mine in Nechako Lakes.

Talking about the quality of life being the envy of the world, I want to stay with health care for a minute. There were some surveys that were done just recently. Out of the 11 Commonwealth countries, we ranked ninth out of 11. That’s not the envy of the world. Ninth out of 11 when it comes to access, and when equity and health care outcomes are considered, we ranked tenth out of 11. The only country that’s worse was the United States. Yet we don’t seem to be willing to have a conversation about why we are ranked so poorly.

The government says they’re putting more money into health care. That’s good. I’m happy they’re doing that. We certainly need more professionals working in the system. But let’s look at what other jurisdictions are doing and why we’re ranked so low. Let’s not stand up and pump our chest and say we’ve got the best in the world, because we don’t. We need to be doing things, and government needs to be able to actually admit that there are problems that need to be solved.

It can’t be solved just with putting money at it. It has to be a comprehensive look at what other jurisdictions are doing and being able to have an open and honest conversation about health care. We don’t seem to be willing to do that. That’s really a shame. It’s not something to be proud of. That’s something to be shameful of — that we’re not willing to even have the conversation about how we can improve that system for the people of this province.

Now, having been engaged with the health care system, I can tell you the professionals that are in there — the nurses, the doctors, everyone that is in there — are doing the best they possibly can. But as the previous speaker from Prince George–Mackenzie noted, when you’re talking about equitable health care and quality of life, we desperately need a cardiac treatment facility in Prince George.

We need a new surgery tower in that hospital in Prince George, and it’s not even on the radar in this budget. People are having to be flown out — if they can get out. A friend of mine just this past year had a problem. He needed surgery. He was on the verge of dying, desperate, and the doctors were desperate, but they could not get a hospital bed for him down at St. Paul’s.

He had to wait eight days before he finally was able to finally get down to St. Paul’s to get service. That’s our health care system that needs improvement. Those are the examples that we need to be thinking about when we’re talking about spending money on health care.

Moving on from health care, I want to talk a little bit about my riding. My riding is predominantly…. Forestry is probably 42, 43 percent of the economic activity. Mining is probably one-third. Agriculture is a significant component. Then there’s a smattering of tourism and manufacturing and other things that comprise the economic activity in my riding. But this government doesn’t seem to care about any of those sectors.

Let’s talk about forestry for a second. With the approach that this government is taking, the uncertainty that’s created by this government — the delays, the time frames, the real challenges and the fact that we are now, by far, the highest-cost producer in North America — analysts are saying that this province is uninvestable. It is uninvestable. Companies will not look at investing in this province.

Furthermore, they’re looking at the forestry assets in this province and saying they’re being evaluated at zero. They’re being evaluated that because it’s uninvestable. How do you sell an asset?

[3:10 p.m.]

The companies that grew up in this province, that helped to build this province, are all taking their investments with them south of the border. They’re moving to Alberta, to Ontario, to Quebec, to Europe, because they’ve got obligations to meet their productions, but they can’t look at investing in British Columbia.

This budget talked about $500 million or $600 million, I think it was, that’s been invested in the forest sector over the last five, six years. That is not a lot of money. You take $150 million out from the San Group and the other $35 million out from the Kalesnikoff in terms of those investments, and then you look at the forest sector across the province. That money equates to barely enough in the maintenance costs of the mills to keep them running. That’s it. Nobody’s looking at investing.

Where is the secondary manufacturing? This government, for the last five years, has been talking about value-added, and we need to get more value instead of volume. Where’s the investment in value-added? Zero. It’s not happening. Except for the San Group investment, it’s just not happening. In fact, the value-added sector is out saying that the moves that this government is making are going to hit them the hardest, in the thousands upon thousands of job losses that this government is inflicting on the forest industry — thousands of job losses.

To the member who previously spoke: go to one of the people that have lost a job recently in the forest sector and talk to them about how their quality of life is doing and how it’s the envy of the world.

When you’re talking about small communities and rural communities across this province and you’re talking about somebody who’s lost a job there, it’s more than just the loss of a job. Where are they going to get a replacement job? Yeah, you’re going to provide some training, but there isn’t the type of heavy industry that’s happening in the area for them to get a job. So they’re going to start looking where? Out of province, because there certainly isn’t the big job pool anywhere else in this province in terms of the types of industries that they’re used to working in.

What does that mean? That means a coach is gone from a small community. That means support for a team is gone. That means donations to food banks, to other support services are gone from the community. That means the family attached is gone. That means the other jobs, the two-times multiplier in that community, are gone.

Just this past week Canfor announced they’re shutting down one of their lines at the Plateau mill in Vanderhoof, losing 70 jobs. With the two-times multiplier, that’s close to 200 people, 200 families in the small community of Vanderhoof that are impacted. Why? Because of government policy, not based on science, to pander to the environmentalists. That’s it.

They’re intentionally harming families and workers, people who built this province, people who contribute to our quality of life, because they’re targeting the environmental vote, and they think that they can just sacrifice a forestry job. That is unacceptable, as any government. That’s not good government. That’s not helping the people of the province. Go sit down and talk to those workers about what that policy is. Explain to them why that environmental vote in the next election is more important than their job or their community or their family.

You’ve got this devastation, quite frankly, that has happened to this forest sector. Even in the budget…. The budget is saying there’s going to be $1 billion in revenue lost in terms of stumpage revenue to the province over the life of this budget.

Think about what that represents — the economic activity across the province to generate $1 billion in revenue to the Crown. That’s just being thrown away because this government wants an environmental vote. It’s not because of science, not because it’s good forest management policy. As a matter of fact, it goes against good forest management policy. It goes against the fact that this province has more land certified at the highest international standards than any other jurisdiction in the world.

[3:15 p.m.]

We do forestry better than anywhere else, so why are we doing this? The Premier is worried about a protest in his riding, and this government is pandering to the Sierra Club, as has been proven through the FOI work that is being done through Resource Works. Very sad.

You look at a riding like mine, and that’s the future of the forest sector. It’s looking pretty bleak. So you think: “Well, okay. Maybe there are opportunities in mining. Maybe some of those jobs could be made up in the mining sector.” There hasn’t been a new mine that started construction in this province in five years — five years. We’ve had record-high copper prices and record-high gold prices. We’re not seeing the investment. Why aren’t we seeing the investment? Because there is a lack of confidence to invest in British Columbia.

You sit down as a board, and you’re looking at investing $1½ billion on building a new mine. The board asks: “What’s your certainty? What’s your payback period? What is the volatility? Does it make sense to be doing this? What is your cost structure?” Well, we’re one of the highest cost structures. We’ve got an incredible amount of uncertainty and a volatile government environment that’s changing policies on the fly. Boards say: “We can invest elsewhere. Why would we want to put that money at risk without the potential for return?”

We have not seen the investment. Yes, we might get one or two here. I’m very hopeful that

the Blackwater project in my riding is going to actually start some construction

this summer. That would be good. That would be a nice large gold mine that could

potentially bring a 1,000 jobs into the area. That would be huge. But we have yet

to see whether a shovel goes in the ground or not for a project like

that.

What has this government done to try to encourage the mining sector? You think about it. We want to have electric vehicles. We want to electrify the grid. We want to advance a green economy and the green agenda. We need five to ten times more copper than we’re producing today. We need the base metals. We need mining to be able to meet that. This government seems to just shun it. They’re not trying to encourage it. They’re not trying to find ways to make it happen.

The only way it happens is if people can jump through the incredibly tough hoops that this government has set up through the environmental process and through the other bureaucratic processes and the huge costs associated with it, to even have a chance. Then they’ve got to convince their board to invest in a regime or in an area that, quite frankly, does not have certainty. It’s sad. If we don’t see any new mines created in this province by 2040, we’ll be down to only five operating mines. How is that improving the quality of life in this province?

You look at the cost structure in this province, and it’s not just the costs for forestry

or mining but even for the agriculture sector. Fertilizer costs are going up.

Transportation costs are going up dramatically — the cost of fuels. They’re

price-takers. They are not price-makers. It’s making it very, very challenging for

the agriculture sector in my area, which is predominantly cow-calf operations,

some feedlots and a little bit of dairy. It’s very challenging, because those

costs are going up — and the costs within government, the regulations and the

challenges.

Just look at the huge challenge it is just to register a well and the fact that there’s only — what is it? — 20 or 25 percent of the well owners in this province that have actually registered, and the deadline is March 1. What is this government doing? Are they going to say to these people that, no, they can’t water their animals because of these well restrictions? What’s the government doing to solve these problems? They don’t care. They don’t seem to care, and that’s a real shame.

You’ve got a forest sector that has been thrown under the bus by this government. You’ve got a mining sector that’s screaming to be able to do investment in this province, and the government seems to be throwing up every roadblock they can. You’ve got an agriculture sector that’s struggling with the costs and is not getting the attention that’s needed. Even things like invasive weeds — no mention of that in this budget. So I go and talk to the folks in my riding and say: “What’s this budget got for you?” There isn’t a lot.

[3:20 p.m.]

Just the other day I got a note from one of my constituents in Houston. One of the doctors in Houston is being forced to have to leave the practice. That’s only going to leave three doctors left for the community. Most of those that are coming in don’t even live there. They live in Smithers.

How is that helping the people in Nechako Lakes, or do the people in Nechako Lakes even matter to this government? After all, they’re going after the environmental vote in the Lower Mainland for the next election. They don’t seem to care about a riding like this, even when you look at things like roads and road improvements.

We used to spend, on average, about $15 million to $17 million a year improving the roads in Nechako Lakes. It wasn’t just because it was a B.C. Liberal government in the Peace River riding. We did that in every riding throughout the North. We spent at least that, if not more.

Under this government, first year, $4.5 million. Second year, $3.5 million, plus some culverts. Then, going into an election year, $11 million. Huge cuts. And what do we see? More potholes in the roads and more damaged side roads than we have ever seen in this area. It’s shameful, really, but it shows what this government’s priorities are.

The previous speaker for the government talked about inflation not being an issue associated with this government.

You’ve increased the input costs of everything. You’ve increased the costs on small businesses. You’ve increased taxes. You’ve increased the gas prices. All of those are the input costs. Guess what. The company just doesn’t say: “Oh, that’s okay. I can take that.” No. They’re working on thin margins. They have to pass it on to the consumer. That’s what is one of the key things that drives inflationary costs.

When my colleagues say that inflation is being caused by government…. Yes, there are external factors, but there are input costs associated with what this government is doing that are increasing the costs for people in this province. Those costs are destroying quality of life.

Now I’ll talk just a little second…. I want to talk about the environment. The government is talking dramatically about meeting its environmental targets and emissions reductions. Yet we have between 1½ million and two million hectares of land that has been burnt in fires that is not being reforested. It is not being reforested. It’s just being left. A little bit of that land is being logged and has been logged, but it’s gotten to the point now where most of that wood has got no value — anything that’s left standing.

How is that meeting environmental standards? That is now going to have the region delayed by at least, in all likelihood, 20 years, maybe longer. With the trees that do come back, it’s going to come back dense. It’s going to require incredible amounts of investment to be able to make that a productive forest. That’s almost the same amount of area that is being deferred for old growth. This government does not have a plan to get out there and rehabilitate that land, to deal with the erosion that is happening on that land, to deal with getting it reforested so that it can be productive.

Just think. One tree, by age 40, can sequester up to a tonne of carbon. That area would be planted at about 1,200 to 1,400 stems per hectare. That’s two billion to three billion trees that could be planted and growing and that could be sequestering carbon. The areas being left are what are called NSR, non-sufficiently restocked, just to let nature take its course.

It shows what the government’s priorities are when you look at it from an environmental perspective. You could do more rehabilitating that area, getting a healthy forest going and getting those trees sequestering carbon, than you could do with anything else you do as a government, and there hasn’t been a penny put towards it.

As a matter of fact, the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C., which was the vehicle for doing that kind of work, has had zero new funding from this government for five years. It is now out of money and about to shut down. It goes to show this government’s priorities: lots of flash, lots of nice words, but reality….

[3:25 p.m.]

When they could actually make a difference, when they could actually do something that would help a forest sector, that would help communities, that would help people, well, it’s not a priority.

Think about the jobs that could be created. Think about how much value would be created by enhancing our silviculture, by doing those additional trees, by managing our forest properly instead of just turning a blind eye to it. It’s shameful.

That’s not even mentioning things like natural gas. I’ve been very fortunate in that the Coastal GasLink project that’s been going through my riding just created a bunch of jobs. It’s created lots of opportunities around there.

We’re not taking advantage of what we could be. Even the EU and, I think, even the UN have talked now about natural gas being a clean energy source, a renewable energy source. It can help to displace coal, which can have five times more emissions, I think — and maybe even higher — than natural gas. We have an overabundant supply of natural gas.

I want you to think about some basic numbers here. As a province, we’re — what? — 0.16 or 0.17 percent of world emissions. That’s not even 1 percent. We’re 0.16 or 0.17 percent of world emissions. China is at 28 percent of world emissions and growing. If we could take more natural gas from our province…. Yes, our emissions might go from 0.16 to maybe 0.18. It would go up a little bit here for our province, which would be great in terms of meeting our targets.

That natural gas being shipped over to China might save them 1 percent. That would be ten times as much value, if not more, in terms of carbon reduction than shutting down everything in the province, including everybody moving out and no farm animals — just that one move alone. Even the EU and the UN recognize the value of doing that, yet this government refuses to put policies in place to allow for another LNG project.

With the environmental standards that are put in place, there’s no way there’ll be another

LNG project in this province. It is too uneconomical, and the technology,

quite frankly, hasn’t been there to be able to do it at that scale. That’s

why Chevron pulled out. That’s why the three other pipes going to the coast

— the Pacific Trail, the Spectra project and the Prince Rupert Gas

Transmission line — don’t have anybody on the other end of those projects

for building a plant and a project.

The world is desperate for our transition fuels, not to mention the revenues that it could bring to the province to be able to help bring tax relief or to be able to fund programs so that you wouldn’t have to run the massive deficits that this government is running. It’s simple, it’s easy to do, but it takes some backbone. It takes the ability to have some vision as to what needs to be done, as our part of the world, to help meet what we need as an environment. It’s shameful, quite frankly, that this government once again just turns a blind eye to it.

As I look at this budget, there’s lots of spending, lots of initiatives and things that are in place. I don’t necessarily agree with how that’s being spent. But there is not the plan to pay for it. There isn’t the plan to grow the economy. There isn’t the plan to meet the metals that we need for our environmental initiatives. There isn’t the plan to be able to be part of the world economy, to be able to offset the carbon by using our fuels. And there isn’t a plan at all for a healthy forest sector. As a matter of fact, anything that you could look at that drives the vast majority of exports of this project by this province is being completely ignored.

That’s my riding. That’s Nechako Lakes. That’s what the people do in my riding. We take these values that were on our landscape, we generate revenue, we generate exports, and we generate the revenues for the Crown. We support the families. We support the jobs in this province. There’s nothing in this budget for the people of Nechako Lakes to be able to carry on with that.

At the end of the day, when you run big deficits, when you don’t grow the economy…. What that means is you are putting the burden on future generations so that their quality of life will be assuredly less than the quality of life that we enjoy here today.

[3:30 p.m.]

Nothing to be proud of in terms of a budget that completely misses the mark. Coming out of the pandemic was the perfect opportunity to be able to invigorate our economy and grow, to be able to make the strategic decisions, to be able to make the policy decisions that are going to be able to truly help not just us but even as a world.

I want to close with my last comments about Ukraine. I just really feel for the people in Ukraine, with what’s going on there. It is absolutely horrendous to think about what those people are facing. We’ve been so fortunate in our lives here that we haven’t known war directly in our territory, where we live. Those people, unfortunately, are going through something absolutely horrendous, and my heart and my prayers go out to them.

Thank you for this opportunity to say a few words associated with the budget. I look forward to more opportunities when it comes up to a potential throne speech response, as well as the legislation that comes forward and estimates.

Once again, thank you. I want to thank the people in my riding for the opportunity to be

able to represent them.

Hon. N. Cullen: Thank you to colleagues for being here in our budget debate. I think this is one of the most important conversations we have on a yearly basis in this province, because not only is it about the budget; it’s also about the expectations that people have for us, the people that we represent.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge two things. One, to my friend from Nechako Lakes. I listened intently to his speech prior to mine, and I want to wish him and his family well, considering the enormous amount of stress I imagine he and his family are under with his parent in palliative care. We’ve all perhaps been through those difficult times. I’m glad that we have the technology and the opportunity